ramble took
up much of the big sophomore's time, and he never seemed more gay nor
care free. And Elinor, if she had a heartache, did not show it in her
happy manner.

On the afternoon before the ball game, a May thunderstorm swept the
Walnut Valley and the darkness fell early. As Dennie Saxon waited on
the Sunrise portico before starting out in the rain, Professor Burgess
locked the front door and joined her. Victor Burleigh was also waiting
beside a stone column for the shower to lighten. Burgess did not see
him in the darkening twilight and Burleigh never spoke to the young
instructor when it was not necessary.

"I must be nervous," Professor Burgess said, trying to manage Dennie's
umbrella and catching it in her hair. "I had a letter today that worried
me."

"Too bad!" Dennie said sympathetically.

"I'll tell you all about it sometime."

He was trying to loose the wire rib-joint from Dennie's hair, which
the dampness was rolling in soft little ringlets about her forehead and
neck. Half-consciously, he remembered the same outline of rippling
hair, as it had looked in the glow of the October camp fire down in the
Kickapoo Corral when she was telling the old legend of Swift Elk and The
Fawn of the Morning Light. She smiled up at him consolingly. Dennie was
level-headed, and life was always worth living where she was.

"I'll be your rain beau." He took her arm to assist her down the steps.

So courteous was his action, she might have been a lady of rank instead
of old Bond Saxon's daughter carrying her own weight of a sorrow greater
than Lagonda Ledge dreamed of. As the two walked slowly homeward under
the dripping shelter of the trees, Vincent Burgess felt a sense of
comfort and pleasure out of all keeping for a man in love elsewhere.
Victor Burleigh watched them from the shadow of the portico column.

"I believe Trench is right. He insists that Burgess likes Dennie, or
that he is mean enough to deceive Dennie into liking him. A man like
that ought to be killed--a scholar, and a rich man, and Dennie such a
brave little poor girl with a kind, weak-kneed, old father on her heart.
Norrie ought to know this, but who am I to say a word?"

"Victor Burleigh, won't you release the fair princess from the tower?" a
girl's voice called.

Vic turned to see Elinor framed in the half-way window of the south
turret. And in that dripping shadowy light, no frame could want a rarer
picture.

"I've fallen into the pit and am